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How to be Disruptive in Sales

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“Disruptive” is a word that’s frequently used an infrequently understood.  To be “disruptive” is to blow up current expectations and patterns, and set new expectations and patterns.  Our profession of selling is one that could use some disruption.  According to a recent HubSpot survey, salespeople are one of the least trusted professions.  Only 3% of people say that they trust salespeople!  At least we beat out politicians, so there’s that. Still – it’s time to update and change.

Any profession with a 3% trust rating needs some work.  The problem is that our customers have been telling us for years how they want to be treated, and we ignore them.  We focus on “Sales Processes” instead of the Buyer’s Journey.  We ask limited questions.  We hold back critical information thinking that we’re giving out “free consulting.”  In short, when customers have the chance to kick salespeople out of the process, they usually take it.  The good news is that this leaves a lot of ways to be disruptive in sales.  Here are three:

  1. Be transparent.  Today, the ultimate sales flex is transparency; customers don’t want to fight for critical information.  Those fine-print contract terms?  Put ‘em on your website so that customers can read them before you visit.  Publish pricing.  Be aware of, and reactive to, your online reviews.  You can either embrace transparency or have it forced upon you. And if you’re scared of putting your information out there, don’t be.  It’s out there anyway.  Technology has made it so that there aren’t any secrets – and if you don’t look like you’re trying to keep secrets, customers will trust you more.

    This also means that you should stay current on what information is out there about you and your company.  Did you get a bad Google review?  Chances are that your prospects will become aware of it.  Be ready to discuss it with them, openly and honestly.  Someone has ripped your company on Glassdoor?  Same thing – be informed, ready, and candid.

  2. Ask your customer how they want to buy. Again – your sales process is “you” focused – be “them” focused. Being “them” focused is one of the easiest and best ways to be disruptive in sales.  I learned how to be disruptive in sales when I was 19; I just didn’t recognize that I was doing so.  I had a job selling mens’ suits at a large department store in Topeka, KS.  Topeka was not a big ‘suit wearing’ city, and most of my customers were coming in to buy a suit for an occasion – a graduation, a funeral, or a wedding.  We all know what retail salespeople do, right?  They say, “Can I help you?”  The customer, knowing their line in this play, quickly says, “Just looking.”  In other words, “leave me alone.”  I did that for a little while, and then one day this couple came in.  The man looked decidedly like he was there under protest.  So instead of the standard question, I asked him, “So, how do you like to shop?”

    He stared at me for a moment and then grumbled, “Well, I really don’t.”  I smiled and said, “Let me guess.  You’re here because someone is graduating, someone died, or someone is getting married, right?”  At that, he smiled and said, “Yeah, my daughter is getting married and I need a suit.”  I quickly sized him up and walked him to his size on the rack (48 regular, if I remember right).  He grabbed the most conservative blue suit on the rack and said, “That’ll do.”  I stopped him, agreeing that it would do the job for the wedding – but what if I hooked him up with a suit that was equally acceptable for the wedding, but had a little more flair?  That way he could wear it with a sport shirt to take his wife out for a nice dinner.  At this, his wife perked up and elbowed him.  He said that this might be possible – so I found a windowpane plaid suit, paired it up with a dress shirt and tie, and then found a couple of sport shirts to try on with it.  I’ll never forget the look on his wife’s face when he came out of the dressing room.  Suffice it to say that I bet that he had a very good evening.  I sold him two suits, two sport shirts, and a shirt and tie.  After that experience, that’s what I did – and the older guys never could figure out how a punk kid was outselling them.

    I was being disruptive by breaking the customer’s expected patterns, and instead working with them to help them buy in the way they wanted to.  I made the customer a genuine partner in the process – and it worked.  It will work for you, too.

  3. Give free advice. Salespeople are petrified of giving “free consulting,” meaning that they want to hold back their prescriptions for solving the customer’s need until they feel that they have a deal.  The fear is that the customer will take their advice to another vendor, get a cheaper price, and buy elsewhere.  This fear ignores two essential facts.  First – customers eventually buy from the vendor they want to.  If you aren’t that vendor, you’ve done a lousy job of showing the customer your value.  Second – the knowledge that the customer wants and needs is out there.  Remember that whole “technology” thing we were talking about.  Giving the customer essential knowledge is one way to build a relationship that is based on openness and trust.  “Don’t be a free consultant” is one of those old philosophies that has been made obsolete.  Remember – there are no trade secrets today.

Most of the time, when “disruptive” is used in a business context, the writer or speaker is referring to technology.  In our profession, tech is vital – but technique can be even more disruptive.  Going against the grain in a way that your customers want is the best, and most profitable, way you can be disruptive every day.

Why “Buy Now or No Deal” is STUPID – #nocustomerever

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I’ll be honest – I thought this technique was dead.  I like to think that my finger is on the pulse of my profession nonstop, 24/7/365.  Surely THIS old, hackneyed technique would be dead as a doornail, right?  You would think.  As educated and savvy as buyers have become, and as much information is available to them, there’s really no excuse for salespeople to continue to think that this old saw would still cut.

Then it happened.  I was buying a piece of equipment for my garage (as I am wont to do), and the salesman said, “And if you’ll buy now, I’ll knock $50 off!”  I was actually ready to buy the thing, and I didn’t even need the discount.  But as much as I’m a car guy, I’m always The Sales Navigator.  And I couldn’t help myself.  This was on a Friday.  I replied, “So, if I come back Monday and I’m ready to buy, cash in hand, you won’t give me the $50 off?”

The salesman’s jaw dropped and he said, “uhhhh…..uhhhh.”  As salespeople are wont to do when a customer hoists them by their own petard.  Like it says in the video, I was there, but only once.  I had the feeling this wasn’t this guy’s first time, which made it worse.  I smiled, gently explained to him what I do, and told him that he might try a different technique.  And then, since I wanted the equipment, I went ahead and bought.

How could he avoided this?  There are a few ways:

  1. Understand the customer’s priorities. A sale happens when there is a need, a solution, and the timing is right.  Any one of those three components can derail your sale.  Even if your solution truly does address the customer’s need, if that need isn’t the highest priority for the customer, the timing won’t be right.  Asking good questions to understand the priorities is the best way to understand timing.
  2. Ask time-frame questions early. You should ask your time-frame questions well before you attempt to close the sale.  Your questions should be centered around the desired time of delivery or use, not around the timing of the decision itself.  When customers make a buying decision, they want immediate gratification; if that isn’t possible, it’s on you to let them know.
  3. Ask checking questions. Never assume things. Don’t assume that the need you are trying to solve is an important need to the buyer.  Don’t assume that they agree that your solution works.
  4. Ask the customer how they see a gain in buying. This is a great pre-proposal question; if the customer has a good answer, they are basically selling your product or service back to you.  If they don’t have an answer?  You’ve missed something.
  5. Listen. This should be obvious, but listen to the answers you’re given, and act on them.  Respect your customers and their intelligence.

“Buy now or the deal can’t happen” is stupid selling. We can fix stupid. Don’t be that guy.  Come up with other ways to get the sale moving that don’t require dishonesty, and you will be more successful

9 Ways to Be More Productive

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This is an answer to a question that I get asked every now and then.  “Troy, how do you get and stay productive?”  I’ve found 9 ways to be more productive.  I’ll be honest enough to say that my own productivity system has been a work in progress for most of my career, and it will continue to be so (I’m always learning).  Some of the techniques have come from reading, most from practice, and many from my passion for building race cars and hot rods.

Yes, I said race cars and hot rods.  It’s a hobby that has taught me a lot over the years about problem solving and work habits.  There’s no such book as ‘Seven Habits of Highly Productive Gearheads,’ but if there were, some of the habits below might be in it.

Game-plan every day:  This seems obvious – but many people don’t do it, and in fact, I didn’t do it for many years.  Every day has a game plan for me.  The obvious components of the plan are ‘live’ activities – appointments, speaking engagements, and the like – but I always have some phone calls to make, some tasks, and some work on at least one long-term project.  I also plan in my personal projects (I still work on cars and motorcycles) and my workout time.  Rigid?  Yes.  But planning all this is what gives me time for fun, believe it or not.

Write it down:  OK, call me a Luddite if you wish, but my game plan is always written down with a pen on real paper in a real (inexpensive) planning pad (it’s fun –and here it is).  I’ve tried using the task management components of Outlook (I use Outlook for my contacts and appointments), but I find that it’s too easy – at least for me – to simply put a new date on an old task.  Writing implies permanence and commitment (which are also reasons that handwritten thank-you notes are particularly effective, but that’s a different story).  I like CRM and use it – but there’s still a place in my world for a pen and paper.

Make appointments with yourself:  My phone calls are programmed into my day, including the time slot that I’ll be making them.  Particularly for telephone prospectors, it’s vital that you block time into your schedule – ESPECIALLY for those parts of your job that you don’t love.  If you don’t, it’s too easy to slide them off.

Checklists are great:  I like lists.  I like them a lot because they keep me focused.  Again, this is a benefit of writing things down instead of using Outlook.  For me there’s a satisfaction involved with taking a pen and checking an item off my list.

Touch big projects every day:  This is one that I learned from racing and hot rodding.  Sometimes a car build can stretch out over years, and if you lose momentum on one….well, Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace are full of aborted projects being sold at a heavy discount.  You lose momentum by taking one day off, then another, then another…..and soon your project is gathering dust and you can’t remember where you left off.  When I’m working on a car, I touch it every day, even if it’s just to change a light bulb or do a little sanding on a fender.  When I do this, I never lose momentum and I never lose track.  This method has segued over to business projects, as well.  To write Sell Like You Mean It!, I spent an hour every day working on the manuscript for six months.

Work ahead:  If you’re making calls today for appointments tomorrow, you’re already sunk.  Don’t be that guy or gal.  Instead, work well ahead.  This article was written two weeks before I posted it.  Why?  Because I was inspired, and my own history tells me that when I get inspired to write an article, I’d better go ahead and write it, even though I might have a couple of articles ahead of it in line.

Stop when you have to:  One of the things that I’ve learned through painful experience with my cars is that, sometimes, it’s best to stop in the middle of a task or project if you’re thrown a curveball, and reapproach it with fresh eyes later.  A couple of months ago it was late in the evening and I was installing a part on my old Mercury, and I was determined to get it done that night.  The problem was that a bolt hole wasn’t lining up and I was starting to cross-thread a bolt.  Now, intellectually, I know that this is bad and that I should stop – but I didn’t.  Instead I turned the ratchet harder (perhaps hoping that the bolt gods would smile upon me and magically make the bolt line up), and messed up the threads.  At least now I stopped.  The next day, I got a tap, recut the thread on the Mercury’s frame, and as I was doing it, an easy method for making the parts line up popped into my head.  Ten minutes later it was done.  I could have saved myself quite a bit of time if I’d stopped when things started to go bad.

Find your idea time:  We all have times during the day when our mind is unfettered and is likely to give us great (and, honestly, sometimes not so great) ideas.  For me, that’s the last hour before bed.  I need to keep my mind unoccupied with important tasks (so, no business work during that time), and I need to keep my planner handy so I can capture those ideas.  What do I do during that time?  I watch TV, I read something unrelated to business…..but I am ready to grab a good idea when it hits me.  Find yours and use it.

Keep a diary:  Okay, okay….if you prefer to call it a ‘journal,’ go right ahead. I suppose that’s more manly.  On the other hand, George Patton called his a ‘diary,’ so I think I’m OK on that count. At the end of every day, I write a little summary of the day in the same planner book that I use to plan my day.  I do this for two reasons:  First, I want to see if I accomplished my mission for the day. Second, sometimes the big success of the day wasn’t planned, and I like to keep track of positives.  I do this because it makes me my own accountability partner.  I never want to write “pretty pointless day,” so I strive to make it a day that advances me somehow.

There’s one other aspect that I didn’t mention, because it’s highly individualized.  Do what works for you.  You don’t have to use all my 9 ways to be more productive; heck, you don’t have to use any of them if you have a system that really works for you.  But you should have a system and you should faithfully execute it, day in and day out.  Until I did, I often had days where I sat in the evening wondering where the day went and why it didn’t produce a result.

How to Develop Your Selling Skills

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Last week, we talked about the need for salespeople to build and expand their selling skills in order to adapt to, and compete with, artificial intelligence.  This week, let’s talk about exactly HOW to develop your selling skills.  “But, Troy, I work on my selling skills all the time!”  No, you probably don’t, if you’re like most salespeople.

I ran a poll on the biggest LinkedIn sales group.  I asked, “On the average, how much time per week do you spend improving and practicing your sales skills, not counting time you spend selling?”  The results were about as I expected:  “Less than one hour” – 48%; “1-2 hours” – 32%; “2-5 hours” – 13%; “more than 5 hours” – 7%.  That old 80/20 rule really is looking valid on this one.  So, how should you be practicing?

My recommendation is this:  Pick one critical skill of selling, and work on it each week.  Next week, pick a different one, and so on.  That will keep you from getting bored and falling into a rut.  The critical skills are:

Prospecting:  Work on your approach.  There’s no prospecting approach that can’t be made better; in many cases, making it shorter makes it better.  Your initial approach statement should be 10-15 seconds – no more.  That goes for telephone prospecting (you do that, right?) or live, face to face prospecting.  Refine it, hone it, improve it, and test it.

Questioning:  The most important skill set in questioning.  Develop two new, great questions to ask a prospect.  Practice them, and more importantly, practice LISTENING ACTIVELY to the answers.  Repeat and refine.

Presenting:  You already know that I don’t like one size fits all presentations.  However, I do like a “modular presentation,” where you are prepared at a moment’s notice to present on different benefit/feature combinations, or aspects of your service.  Think of it as a mental “slide deck” where the slides can be rearranged, inserted, and deleted on the spot.  Practice one “slide” per week.

Proposing:  Present price and terms confidently and in a way that doesn’t invite distrust or uncertainty.

Closing:  Practice getting comfortable with asking simple, to the point, closing questions – and then shutting up.

Handling objections:  Make a list of common objections, and then come up with your first, best response to each one.  Practice clarifying, isolating, and resolving objections.

As I said, rotate these around to stay fresh and incrementally build your skills over the long haul.  And practice.  Most salespeople don’t practice skills except in front of the customer.  That’s dumb.  In front of the customer, mistakes cost you money.  In your office, it costs you nothing except a little time and a little pride (if anyone else sees).

And here’s the mentality you should use in your practice.  Some of you know that I am a former and reformed wrestling fan (today’s product is just insulting to the intelligence, in my opinion).  Still, I like listening to podcast interviews of past wrestling personalities.  It’s mind candy for when I drive, and I drive a lot – but occasionally, something really profound emerges.

One such profundity came from a wrestler and wrestling trainer named Dr. Tom Prichard.  The host and Prichard were discussing a particular dangerous wrestling move that had been botched on a recent show, and could have caused paralysis or even death.  Prichard said, “People shouldn’t do moves that they don’t know how to do.”

The host agreed and said, “Practice till you get it right, right?”

Prichard said, “Nope.  Practice until you can’t get it WRONG.”

Wow.  That’s pretty profound, isn’t it?  There’s a big difference, as I thought about it, between “until you get it right” and “until you can’t get it wrong,” and it’s the difference between conscious thought and habit.  I encourage you to follow Dr. Tom’s advice.  Whatever technique you are working on, practice it to the point that you can’t get it wrong, and you won’t.  How much does that take?

It depends on you and your mental makeup.  Studies show that habits form at 21 repetitions.  Maybe it takes that much for some techniques; maybe it takes less than others.  I’d suggest that when you realize that you aren’t having to invest the same level of conscious thought to get through a particular technique, you’ve got it.  Then, when you’re in front of the customer, that conscious thought can be invested in paying attention to the customer, their reactions, and their words.

Because – even though they aren’t practicing the way you are – the customer is always the star of this particular show.  Don’t forget it, and keep working to develop your selling skills.

Can Salespeople Be Replaced by AI?

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“Can salespeople be replaced by AI in five years?”  That was the topic of the poll on LinkedIn.  My instinctive reaction was probably the same as yours – “Of course not.”  Then, I did a little thinking before I answered.  And I realized that, yes, a lot of salespeople could be replaced by AI – not in five years, but RIGHT NOW.  That’s because their skills aren’t really any better than your basic chatbot – and therein lies a problem for those of us who care deeply about the role of the professional salesperson.

In 2011, Selling Power Magazine interviewed me as part of a cover story on the future of selling.  I’ve always thought of myself as a very forward-looking person when it comes to our profession – but boy, was my crystal ball broken when I gave my responses to their questions, and I realized this when I looked back at the article.  If you click, you’re going to read a pretty long article, but if you care at all about the sales profession and your role in it, you’d better click.  I’ve written over 600 articles on selling and this might be the most important.

Here’s what I said.  In response to a question about what the future of the sales profession looked like, I said, “Midline salespeople of tomorrow will be displaying the same level of expertise ten to fifteen years from now that the superstars display today, and the superstars will be on a whole new level.  Staying on top will require a higher level of mental commitment.”

I was wrong, but I should have been right.  I’ve written about this before, but if anything, the aggregate level of sales ability has declined somewhat in the twelve years since I made those comments.  That’s because most salespeople of today spend less time and energy developing their skills.  They find a level and stick to it.  Midline salespeople are, at best, no better than they were in 2011.  Some of the responsibility for this rests on the salespeople themselves, and much of it rests on CEOS and sales managers who don’t foster a culture of continual sales skill development. Are there exceptions?  Yes.  Absolutely – I’ve encountered some remarkable salespeople (although I don’t think that “whole new level” has happened).  But they are exceptions.  By and large, the aggregate sales skills at each level have remained constant.

When I was asked how the Internet is changing the game, I said, “The Internet can take orders and distribute content [thus taking up functions once designated to salespeople], but what it can’t do it discover customer needs.  It can’t build relationships, and it can’t prospect on its own.”  Well, I was wrong about that one, too.  AI bots can do a rudimentary job of discovering customer needs at present, and that will only get better as time and technology marches on.

What about the other two components of what I said – relationship building and prospecting?  Obviously, AI cannot build a true, interpersonal, face to face relationship.  However, AI can do an excellent job of REMEMBERING what was said and has transpired (because it can feed directly into CRM systems) and from a business perspective, it can make excellent use of a customer’s time.  That’s a threat to, but not a replacement for, traditional sales relationship building.

Can AI prospect?  That’s a tantalizing thought, isn’t it?  Most salespeople dislike prospecting (full disclosure – I’ve never been in love with it myself).  I can envision a time when an AI bot is able to prospect through email, LinkedIn, and even the telephone.  In fact, the technology for email and social media is already here, and I’m willing to bet that if the phone prospecting tech doesn’t exist yet, it will shortly.  Imagine an AI bot that dials a prospect, engages in a voice to voice conversation using prospecting and sales best practices, and even sets appointments.  Heck, take it a step further and imagine it doing so in the same voice as the real salesperson who would handle the live appointment.  Or how about an AI bot that sets Zoom sales appointments and then carries them out in a hologram?  This kind of thing would have been science fiction five years ago – now it’s a coming reality.

Don’t misunderstand me – I still think that a well-trained, skilled, passionate, and engaged salespeople can do all of those things BETTER – but too many salespeople are not well-trained, skilled, passionate, and engaged.

Now that I’ve told you two areas where I was wrong, allow me to tell you one area where I was right – or will be soon.  When asked, “How do salespeople keep social media from being the tail that wags the dog?” I responded, “Social networking is a strategy for marketing promotions and relationship management.  It is not a prospecting tool [OK, I was a little wrong about that]. A lot of those functions are going to slide down to the lowest-paid person who is competent to do them.”  Given the level to which AI apps like ChatGPT write social media posts, I was right on target – ChatGPT is definitely cheaper than even an administrative person.

Where I went wrong, I went wrong for two reasons.  First, I anticipated a higher level of sales skill development on the part of the average salesperson.  Second, I didn’t see AI coming.  Shame on me.  Apps like ChatGPT have the capability of being game-changers, and they also have the capability of being harnessed (by skilled salespeople and managers) to increase the effectiveness of a company’s sales force.

How to avoid being replaced by AI

So if the answer to “Can salespeople be replaced by AI?” is “yes, it’s very possible,” then the question for we human salespeople is, “How can we avoid being replaced by AI?”  Here’s where the wicket gets sticky, because this requires some serious engagement and effort on our part.  Here’s a three-point plan.

  1. Get better at your job. The key for salespeople in this environment is to constantly learn, develop, add new skills, and shed old techniques that aren’t working anymore.  Unfortunately, few salespeople do this.  When I interview salespeople on behalf of my clients, I always ask, “What’s the most recent sales book you’ve read?”  Ten years ago, I got a good answer more than half the time.  Today, it’s rare that I get one at all – in fact, about half of the salespeople I interview have never read a book on selling.  When I ask a follow up question about how they develop their skills, they answer that they really don’t.  Sales is a profession of constant change and constant development, and if you don’t care enough about your profession to get better at it, you are replaceable.  Don’t be that guy or gal.  Invest in yourself.  Read books.  Read articles.  Watch YouTube videos.  Attend training programs.  And then practice, practice, practice.  Next week we’ll talk about what it really means to practice and learn sales techniques. Get better and do better.
  2. Embrace technology. Yes, this article is partially telling you how to combat a new technology, but those who do not embrace it will find themselves steamrolled by it.  I’m constantly amazed when I see salespeople (and worse, sales trainers) fighting the use of tech like CRM.  I have actually seen a “sales trainer” recommending that salespeople ditch the CRM and instead use paper note cards.  The 1990s called, and they would like their mentality back!  Today, salespeople must embrace and use tech of all types.  CRM, social media, video conferencing, and IM’s are all tech that salespeople should not only be conversant with, but competent in.  Not only that, you should be ready and anticipating the next trend.  There’s a reason that I refer to “AI” in this article for the most part, and not “ChatGPT.”  ChatGPT is but one AI app, and who knows whether it will be the most prominent in five years?  Remember MySpace?
  3. Flip the script. We always like to think about the “Sales process,” and what we want from the process and what activities we will be performing to get there. I want to challenge you, and I’m taking this challenge myself.  Stop thinking about “Sales processes” and instead think of the “buyer’s journey.”  Think about the act of selling from the perspective of the person buying, evaluate the steps from the buyer’s point of view, and work to help them achieve what they want.  It’s a change in thought and terminology, and as 2023 progresses, I’ll be helping you get there with articles, videos, and even training.

Make no mistake about my outlook.  A great salesperson will always be better than AI.  A good salesperson will always be at least as good as great AI.  I’m a 100% passionate advocate for personal selling by human beings to human customers.  If I sound pessimistic in this article, it’s because I’m concerned.  But as I said, I’m here to help, and I’ll be doing so through the Navigator and through my YouTube channel.  If you’re a salesperson, start reading, watching, and practicing.  In the coming weeks, we’ll talk about how to practice and about how to view sales from the perspective of the buyer.

And if you’re a business owner or sales manager, I can help you, too.  In addition to the free resources above, I can train your salespeople to be irreplaceable.  I can help you hire great salespeople.  And I can coach you to manage the very best sales team in your market.

The future might look spooky, but it doesn’t have to be.  This is another challenge to our profession, and we can and will overcome it and be better and more valuable to our customers than ever before.

The Power of Great Questions

Sales Blog, The Navigator News

This is an excellent article from the Harvard Business Review on the power of questions. I’ve said for many years that, in selling, 80% of your chance to win or lose the sale is in the questions you ask, and questioning is a key piece of my sales training programs. Still, most salespeople don’t ask enough questions. I ran a poll on the “Sales Best Practices” group and asked how many questions salespeople were asking on the discovery appointment, and the results shocked me. 37% said that they asked five or fewer questions; another 41% said they asked 10 or fewer questions. Only 22% of salespeople ask more questions (wanna bet which group has the better results?). Overlay this with the result from the article that said that there is a significant difference in likeability and rapport building between asking five questions and asking nine – and now extrapolate that to a sales call where you are trying to define customer needs. If you’re not making enough sales, you’re probably not asking enough questions.

How to Fix a Bad Sales Presentation

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We’ve all been there.  I don’t care how good you are as a salesperson, a manager, or a speaker – you’ve been in the middle of a sales presentation and realized that it was going sideways.  In titling this article, “How to fix a sales presentation,” I don’t mean that I’m going to tell you how to CREATE a great sales presentation.  I already have videos and articles on that topic.

No, I’m going to tell you how to do something more challenging – how to fix a sales presentation while it’s going bad.  It requires some heavy mental lifting on your part.  It also requires an uncomfortable level of transparency on my part, because I have to tell you about my biggest failure as a professional speaker.  It’s a story that I don’t enjoy telling, and one that still bothers me, nine years later.  But to tell you how to fix a bad presentation, I have to tell you about my worst one and how I didn’t fix it.  So, if you’d like to watch me kick my own ass in words, click below.

It was the spring of 2014, and my national speaking career was still very much in the growth stage.  I was on a little mini-tour.  On Sunday, I was to give a keynote to office furniture dealers in Palm Springs, CA.  Then I drove to Las Vegas on Monday to speak on at a different conference on Wednesday (an extra day in Vegas is always a good thing for me).  Then, back to Long Beach to speak at yet another conference on Friday and Saturday.  Four different programs in seven days, at three different conventions, in three different cities, all of which promised a lot of fun.

It’s that first speech that I want to tell you about.  I was delivering a morning keynote.  At the time, keynotes were not my specialty (I’ve since come up with a couple of really good ones), but I was pumped up.  However, ten minutes into the speech, I noticed that it wasn’t landing.  There wasn’t any note-taking.  The laugh lines weren’t generating laughter.  And worse, the hundred faces staring back at me were blank.  I knew it was going bad.

Still, I pushed through.  I gave my speech as planned.  After all, it was the topic that the head of the association and I had landed on.  My speech couldn’t possibly have been the problem.  Maybe it was just too early in the morning.  When I called for questions after 50 minutes, there was one or two – I can’t remember which.  In a good speech, I typically have more questions than I have time to answer.  And when I ended, there was the politest of applause, and then everyone filed out.  NOBODY came up to talk to me afterwards.  That’s when I knew that I had well and truly laid an egg.

When the post-conference evaluations were sent to me, I was embarrassed.  The scores were low and nearly every comment was about how the topic wasn’t what they were expecting to hear.  I got no business from attendees (unusual), and to this day, that association won’t consider bringing me back.  That bridge is burned.  Understand – my speech wasn’t offensive, I used no profanity or off-color humor, nothing like that.  I just missed the mark by a long shot.

I’ve thought about it a lot since then.  If I had it to do over, I’d have done it much differently.  You see, what really bothers me is that I knew that I was missing the mark, and I did nothing about it.  I wasn’t being lazy – I just didn’t know what to do.  Afterwards, I decided that I’d never finish a speech that was going wrong without doing something different.  Here’s what I’d have done, if I had it to do over.

I’d have stopped my speech.  I’d have said something like, “You know, based on your expressions, I’m not talking about what you want me to talk about.  Let me ask YOU a question.  What can I do, from this stage, to make the rest of our hour together time well spent for you?”  It’s not like I didn’t have other material; at the time, I probably had ten other good speeches, and I’m good at winging it and making up material on the spot.  I have a feeling that if I’d asked, they’d have given me an idea that I could have used, and I could have shifted gears and done something they’d have appreciated and enjoyed for the last 45 minutes of my time.  Would it have been unorthodox?  Heck, yes.  But the key is that, at that point, my risk was zero. I was already bombing, and my choice was to either keep bombing or to try something.  If that other something hadn’t worked, either, so what?  I’d at least have gone down swinging, and I might have saved the speech and the relationship with the association.  Instead, I ruined both.

Maybe you’ve had that experience during a sales presentation – it’s going flat and you don’t know why.  If that happens to you (and if you sell enough, it either will happen or has happened), here’s how to fix a bad sales presentation.

  1. The first rule of finding yourself in a hole is:  Stop digging.  Stop the presentation when you realize it’s going bad.  If the presentation is falling flat, always remember that the risk of changing it up is zero – so your fear of doing so should be zero as well.
  2. The person in the room who knows what they want is right across from you – the customer.  Ask why your presentation is going wrong.  Put the burden on yourself – “You know, Mr. Customer, I feel like this presentation isn’t hitting the mark.  What have I missed?  Did I misinterpret your needs?”  In my case, the problem was that I hadn’t talked to any of the dealers who were attending the conference beforehand, so I didn’t know what it was that they were looking for.  I’d asked the wrong questions of the wrong people.  Most of the time, when a sales presentation goes wrong, it’s not the presentation itself – it’s the needs discovery beforehand.  At this point, if you have to go back and ask the right questions of the right people, DO IT.  Pressing on could cost you the customer.
  3. Change it up. This step requires a high degree of confidence and mental agility.  But we salespeople have that, don’t we?  Once you understand the real needs of the right people, NOW you can move forward.  Don’t be afraid to create a presentation on the spot.  By “presentation,” I don’t mean a slide deck (unless you just happen to have some visuals on hand that can help); I mean your VERBAL presentation that will address their needs.

When your risk is zero, the potential reward is high.  High reward with low risk is what we all want.  That presentation still bugs me, but I’ve never made that mistake again.  Ever since, I’ve been more careful about pre-conference preparation.  I’ve never given that particular speech again; in fact, I don’t even list it anymore. And only once since have I ever had that “This is going flat” feeling.  That was two years later, and I did exactly what I suggested above.  The last 30 minutes of that program were very well received, and I still speak for that association.

That’s how to fix a bad sales presentation.  Be mentally agile, able to perceive that “moment,” and mentally agile enough to change gears, and you won’t have to have that feeling that I have as I write about my biggest failure as a speaker.

Are You Asking Enough Sales Questions?

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Sales Questioning Poll ResultsAre you asking enough questions?  A couple of weeks ago, I ran a poll on a very popular LinkedIn group.  The poll question was simple:  “On the average, how many discovery questions do you ask a new customer on an initial appointment?”  If you’ve read any of my work at all, you know that I believe that the root of good things in selling is asking a lot of good questions; in fact, questioning is the longest unit in my training programs.  Well, I’m starting to feel like I’m on an island with a pretty small population.

The results were shocking to me.  Spoiler alert:  37% of respondents said that they asked 1-5 questions on a first appointment; 41% asked 6-10.  In my opinion, the sweet spot for a quality discovery is 11-15 questions; only 11% of respondents were in that bracket. 12% were discovery overachievers who asked more than 15 questions.   After I pushed my lower jaw back up (it had dropped to hit the desk), I realized that within weakness in the market, there is opportunity.  And it’s YOUR opportunity.  If 77% of salespeople ask 10 or less questions, they’re not getting to know customers very well.  That’s your competition.  Want to beat them?  Ask more questions.  But what should you be asking about?  I’ll tell you.

  • Your contact’s professional history. “How did you come to be in this position?” is a great question.  People love to tell their stories, and this question gives you a great window into their viewpoints as well as being a good rapport-building question.  For instance, a plant manager who started out turning wrenches might respond to different value propositions than one who came to the plant fresh from getting an MBA.
  • The company’s past, present, and future. Yes, many companies put this info on their website.  Have you ever seen a website that was out of date?  Me too. And if you are working from obsolete or incorrect information, you might end up presenting the wrong solutions.  Ask – or, better, refer to what you read and ask for your contact’s viewpoint on it.  That way you show that you’ve done your homework AND that you’re curious.
  • Company priorities. Just because your “stuff” is the most important thing in the world to you, it doesn’t mean that it’s the most important thing to your customer.  Where does your stuff fall on the list of priorities for your company or your contact?  This will have a lot to do with the importance and urgency of your proposal.
  • Needs regarding your stuff. Notice that we are just now starting to ask about what you sell, and what their needs are regarding it.  That’s because your end of the world is a small part of the big picture in their world – and you need to know the lay of the land before you start probing what’s wrong in your part of the world.  By the way, don’t neglect asking about what’s right in your part of the world – if you don’t get the sale, this is going to be a big part of the reason why.
  • How they define success. Ultimately, all sales questions boil down to understanding how your customer defines a successful purchase, and how you can help them achieve it.  Still, at this point, you should probably ask a direct question about how they will define success.
  • Process questions. You should also understand the customer’s buying process, and how it will impact this purchase.
  • More questions. There’s more to ask – but you get the idea. Are you asking enough questions?  Here’s what you should know:  If you ask six questions, you are now better than 37% of your competitors.  If you ask 11 questions, you are now better than 78% of your competitors.  And so on.  And you should, of course, drill down on many of those questions.

Is my survey scientific?  Nope.  It was a LinkedIn survey.  This probably skews the numbers, but does so in a positive way.  Salespeople on LinkedIn groups who respond to surveys like this one are probably higher on the scale of the profession, because they’re more engaged.  So, if anything, that means that the real numbers are worse than what’s reported on my survey. In the comments, some “salespeople” expressed disdain for the very idea that comprehensive questioning is important; one even said, “If a salesperson is a dynamic opener, he doesn’t need to ask many questions and can close the sale in one call.”  I suppose there are areas of selling where that might be true, but it’s not in a highly professional sales universe.

The bottom line – when you are considering your questioning and discovery, here are some things to remember:

  • More is typically better.
  • Asking questions shows you care.
  • The worst question is the one you don’t ask.
  • From time to time, you should re-ask questions of current customers; things change.
  • Great salespeople are always working to improve their questioning skills.

That’s all for now.  If you’ll excuse me, I have to get the look of amazement off my face.

The Four Decisions Every Buyer Makes

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Sometimes I think we make selling entirely too complicated – and by “we,” I mean my profession of sales authors and trainers.  Sure, selling can be difficult.  That’s why they pay us the big bucks.  We’re dealing with people and trying to persuade them, and that’s always a challenge.  Still, why make the sale more complicated and cumbersome than it has to be?

The truth is that, boiled down to its elements, every sale consists of a prospective or current customer making four decisions.  The trick is that there’s no gray area – every decision must be in your favor, or you won’t win the sale.  Here they are:

Decision One:  The decision to engage with you.  Yep, the first decision that your customer makes is the decision to talk to you – or to engage with you, if you prefer that terminology (and I do; “engagement” implies a two-way street).  If you can’t get an audience with your customer, you can’t sell them.  Yes, you can receive an order from someone who doesn’t talk to you (technology these days is wonderful), but you won’t have an opportunity to persuade or affect the outcome of that decision.  This means that your approach to them MUST communicate the value of a conversation with you.  In fact, in most cases, that’s all you should be shooting for; by trying to sell more than the simple value of the conversation, you can get neither.

Decision Two:  The decision that you can solve their need(s).  Every customer has needs.  Your ability to discover their needs, and then solve them, is the key to getting a “yes” at this stage of the sales process.  That means that, first and foremost, you must ask copious amounts of questions.  Even if you THINK you know what the buyer needs, you don’t KNOW until you ask them.  Ultimately, you must know how the BUYER will define a successful purchase.  Not how you define it, not how most of your other customers define it, not how your boss says it’s defined, but how the buyer defines it.  Without knowing how the buyer will define a successful work, everything else is just guesswork – and guesswork rarely wins sales.

Once you know their needs and how they define success, two burdens are placed upon you.  The first burden is this – if your offerings do not and cannot solve the buyer’s needs, and meet their definition of success, you must bow out.  This is the only way to retain your (and your company’s) professional credibility.  Yes, I know, there’s nothing more painful than walking away from potential dollars – but would you rather collect the dollars by hammering someone into a bad purchase, and then live with the failure?  Walking away early means that you live to sell another day when your solution fits; making a bad sale means that you are forever disqualified.   Even pushing a solution when your buyer knows it’s not a solution can forever disqualify you.

The second burden is that, if your solution does meet the buyer’s needs and definition of success, your presentation must be specifically and intimately tailored to those exact needs and definition.  This is harder than it sounds, as sometimes (many times) you have to develop a presentation on the spot.  Salespeople can get into the “sell sheet” or “slide deck” mentality that says, “I have all this great information, and I have to get it all out,” even when the customer doesn’t care about all the information.  If I go to the doctor for a sore shoulder and he gives me a pill that will fix it (I know that’s not a real thing, but work with me here), I don’t care that it will also solve a sore throat because I don’t HAVE a sore throat.  When presenting, present specifically to the customer’s needs.  Hit the points hard and often that are meaningful and leave out information that is meaningless.  If you execute these steps correctly, your buyer will make the second critical decision – that you can solve needs – and move you to the next step of the process.

Decision Three:  The decision that your solution represents good value.  If your buyer is interested, he/she is probably going to say, “Okay, how much?”  At this point (or as soon after as you can), you offer a proposal with price and terms.  Your buyer is then going to evaluate your offering and basically ask themselves whether it’s a good spend of money, time, and resources, or not, and make their third decision.  If you’ve asked enough questions about priorities, needs, and the impact of solving those needs, you should already be 80% toward the answer to this question. Still, we sell to human beings, and those human beings can be somewhat unpredictable.

Decision Four:  The decision to buy from you.  “But wait, Troy, isn’t the decision that you represent good value also a decision to buy?” Nope.  Not in the slightest.  This is where variables outside of your control come into play.  Sometimes your solution is a good spend for the department you’re selling to – but corporate priorities dictate that resources go in a different direction.  Or, the timing just isn’t right (maybe they have other projects going on that require the attention and resources that would otherwise be devoted to yours).  In any case, you can have the greatest solution to a big problem, priced right, and still not win the sale because some externality is blocking you.  Your best strategy here is, back when you’re doing the questioning, to ask questions about overall company priorities, ongoing projects, etc.  Sometimes you can sell against those priorities if you know about them – but final decision time is too late to ask or sell against it.

Here’s what you need to know.  All of these decisions MUST go in your favor, and each one qualifies you to move to the next step.  Fail any one and you will not win the sale, even if your buyer “allows” you to keep selling (by offering a price that won’t result in a sale, for instance).